PhD Student, Robotics — University of Toronto
Phone Thiha Kyaw
I am currently pursuing my PhD in Robotics at the University of Toronto Robotics Institute, working with Professor Jonathan Kelly in the STARS Laboratory. My research draws on ideas from differential geometry to advance motion planning and task-level behaviors, making robots move and act more intelligently and efficiently.
Previously, I worked in robotics at Dyson and LionsBot International, where I contributed to many autonomy software stacks and large-scale robotic deployments. I also conducted research at the ROAR Lab, Singapore University of Technology and Design under Professor Mohan Rajesh Elara, and earlier studied Mechatronics Engineering at Yangon Technological University under Professor Theint Theint Thu. I hold a first-class honours degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Portsmouth.
News
- I presented our paper on contact modes as strata at the IROS’26 Workshop on Geometric-Aware Representations in Robotics in Pittsburgh, USA 🇺🇸!
- Best Paper AwardOur paper Lost in Time? received the Best Paper Award at IEEE MFI 2026 in Pilsen, Czechia 🏆
- Two journal acceptances: Greedy RRT* to Autonomous Robots and our work on direct informed sampling on Riemannian manifolds to RA-L! 🎉
- Our work on the intrinsic geometry of diffusion models for constrained inverse kinematics has been accepted to CoRL 2026! 🎉🤖
- I presented our paper on planning on Riemannian manifolds at WAFR’26 in Oulu, Finland 🇫🇮!
- Our new preprint on direct informed sampling on Riemannian manifolds is now available on arXiv:
paper - Our paper on planning on Riemannian manifolds has been accepted to WAFR 2026! 🎉